3 bar menu

The Masquerade Ball – Part 01

After the full moon had come up, Hansel took his little sister by the hand. They followed the pebbles that glistened there like newly-minted coins, showing them the way.

—The Brothers Grimm, Hansel and Gretel

---

Part I: The Masquerade Ball

A Strange Tale About the Dead, the Lumberjack, the Orphan, and the Empress of Britannia.

---

The Old Masquerade sped on through the stormy night.

Outside the window of the compartment, with its exquisite scrolledwork ornaments, was a deep-black Baltic Sea, deeper than darkness. Black waves splashed on the surface, their menacing roars threatening the train as it rocked and tore through the night.

Every flash of lightning, every clap of thunder, the Old Masquerade shuddered like a nervous rat.

In a compartment of this crowded train…

“Hold on, Victorique. Let me wipe your nose.”

“Quit your nagging, Kujou. How about instead of rubbing people’s faces, you pray quietly in the corner? I don’t know what religion you follow, though.”

“Buddhism, of course. And I’m not rubbing your face, I’m wiping it. Lift your chin up a little.”

Victorique grudgingly lifted her tiny, elegant chin just a little. Her escort, Kazuya, was wearing a terribly serious look, like a man captivated by a Daruma doll, as he moved the silk handkerchief toward Victorique’s face.

Wiping the faint grit from the side of her small, pretty nose, Kazuya smiled. “There. All good.”

“I can handle myself,” Victorique huffed.

“Where’s my thank you?”

“Hmph.”

Victorique turned her face away. The bottom of her elegant red dress, made of layers of torchon lace, swayed. Her dazzling golden hair hung over her dress to the floor like an untied silk turban. A red mini hat adorned with lovely rose corsages sat on her small head, tied around her chin with a satin ribbon. She wore pointy, silver boots.

But her beautiful, aristocratic features, reminiscent of a lovely porcelain doll, and her deep green eyes, looked unhappy, her rosy cheeks puffed up considerably.

“What is it?” Kazuya asked softly as you would your little sister. “Something wrong?”

“A little dirt will not degrade my intellect,” Victorique declared proudly.

“You’re so full of yourself, you know that? Oh, no. Your intellect’s degrading again.”

He removed a tiny seashell attached to her mini hat. Victorique puffed her rosy cheeks again like a squirrel whose mouth was full of nuts. She kept her frown for a while, until eventually she grew tired of it and wore her usual expression, a strange melancholy glinting in her deep, green eyes, like someone who’d lived for decades.

“The crisis has passed,” Kazuya said.

Victorique groaned.

“Hmm? Are you sleepy?”

“Ahuh…”

“Go to sleep, then. I’ll stay up and keep an eye out. Protect your intellect.”

“Very well. Make sure to keep your eyes peeled.”

As soon as Victorique rubbed her eyes with her tiny, pudgy hands, she curled up like a kitten and rested her head on Kazuya’s shoulder. He could hear her soft breaths. Kazuya sat up straight like the son of a strict imperial soldier, a posture drilled into him by his father by putting a ruler on his back since he was young. He stared straight ahead, and if not for his charming face, he would have looked tough and hard-edged. But as he thought about his little friend leaning on his shoulder, a gentle smile appeared on his serious face.

Snore.

The train sped on through the dark, stormy night.

---

Kazuya Kujou was on board the Old Masquerade in order to bring back his dear friend, the Wellspring of Wisdom, Victorique de Blois, who disappeared from St. Marguerite Academy at the end of summer vacation. Victorique had been locked up by her father, Marquis Albert de Blois, in the ominous monastery Beelzebub’s Skull on the Baltic Sea coast.

Two forces were clashing in the Kingdom of Sauville: Marquis de Blois’ Ministry of the Occult, which aimed to strengthen the country’s power through the use of strange powers passed down in the Old World, and Jupiter Roget’s Academy of Science, which sought to pave the way to the future through the power of science. At the monastery, Victorique identified the Ministry’s assassination of an Academy spy. She also explained the mysterious event that occurred ten years ago during the Great War. After escaping safely from the submerging monastery, they boarded the Old Masquerade, and were now on their way back to St. Marguerite Academy.

The compartment was filled with silence. Sitting straight in the room was an earnest East Asian boy, with a small, hauntingly beautiful, blonde girl in an elegant dress leaning on his shoulder, sleeping. Across from them sat two women in silence. One was a girl of about seventeen or eighteen with blue eyes and black hair cut straight around her shoulders, clothed in what seemed like a school uniform, a white blouse and plaid skirt. She had been staring out the window for some time with a brooding face, muttering to herself. The other was a middle-aged woman, with brown hair swept back and wearing a high-neck blouse and a long skirt. She wore no make-up and had a relaxed aura about her. She had been staring at Victorique and Kazuya with interest for a while. When her eyes met Kazuya’s, she smiled at him. Kazuya nodded shyly, pulling his chin back a little.

Victorique’s soft breaths echoed in Kazuya’s ear. He glanced at his friend’s face.

She was wrapped in a bundle of red torchon laces, a mini hat with a rose corsage, and gleaming silver boots. Her eyes were closed at the moment, and her incredibly long golden eyelashes flickered faintly with each breath, indicating that she was not an intricate doll, but a living, breathing girl. On her tiny finger shone a dark purple ring, given to her by her dear mother, Cordelia Gallo, a beautiful and bewitching golden mother wolf, at the monastery. Victorique was clutching the ring preciously as though afraid to lose it.

The older woman’s gaze darted between them for a while. She, together with the dark-haired girl next to her, pulled them up onto the train right before the waves could swallow them. They also listened to Victorique’s brilliant deduction a little later.

The lady tried to speak to Kazuya several times, but when she glanced at Victorique, she just smiled and closed her mouth, not wanting to wake her up.

A while later, Victorique woke up. She groaned as she rubbed her eyes with her tiny hand. Her eyes fell on the newspaper on the floor. Her Wellspring of Wisdom must be getting bored with nothing to read. Kazuya also studied the newspaper. The front page featured a story about the murder in London of a wealthy man who owned a coal mine. Next to it was a small article about the disappearance of Miss Legrant, a seventeen-year-old student in Saubreme. Miss Legrant was described as having waist-length black hair and a quiet personality. Her family was concerned about her safety.

A sinister black spider crawled across the gray newspaper, black-and-white striped legs scuttling past the article on Miss Legrant.

The gloomy girl was still staring out the window and muttering to herself. Her black hair, cut straight around her shoulders, stirred every time the train shook, as though it had a life on its own. The bottom of her black-and-white plaid skirt was a little dirty. Perhaps she had not changed it for a while.

The lady looked at the girl with concern. “I wonder where Miss Legrant went,” she said, trying her best to sound cheerful. “Her family must be worried sick.”

“Yeah,” Kazuya responded.

“Word on the street is that the murdered tycoon was actually on the verge of bankruptcy.” Despite the dark topic, the lady shared some societal gossip in a cheery tone. Kazuya humored her with short responses, and eventually the mood seemed to lighten up.

“Um, may I introduce myself?” the lady asked reservedly.

“Of course.” Kazuya nodded.

The lady smiled. “My name is Britannia Gabri—”

The door to the compartment flung open. The girl gave a start and lifted her head up.

A bearded man of about thirty, with a body as big as a hill, stood there. He was wearing a sturdy leather vest and dirt-stained boots. His hands were burly, and he gave the impression of a laborer. Behind him was another man of about twenty, good-looking and dressed stylishly like the son of an aristocrat. He glanced at Kazuya and frowned faintly, surprised to see an Asian boy.

“Oh, there’s people here too,” he muttered.

“Oh, well. Let’s just sit in the corridor, then,” said the burly man. “I brought playing cards with me.”

They both turned to leave, but the middle-aged woman stopped them.

“There’s some space here if you like.”

“Ah, thank you kindly.”

The large man happily entered the compartment, his beard loosening.

The young man followed after him. “Rough night, huh?” he said, eyeing everyone present with a smile on his face.

“How about we all introduce ourselves?” asked the large man cheerfully. “Oh?” He spotted Victorique, who had been hiding behind Kazuya, looking like a little rose. The young man’s eyes widened as well in surprise.

“My, what a lovely young lady we have here. How old are you?”

“A hundred and fourteen years old,” Victorique said in a low voice, like the calm before a storm.

Kazuya stifled a laugh. Victorique got very grumpy when she was treated like a child.

Both men stared at her blankly, shocked at the husky voice that came from the mouth of a tiny girl as pretty as a bouquet of flowers. There was a forbidding silence.

Thunder roared outside the window. For a brief moment, a flash of lightning illuminated the compartment in a white light.

Blinded by the dazzling light, Kazuya swallowed.

Plop!

There was a sound, too faint to hear after a fierce thunderclap, but it drew everyone’s attention to the floor nonetheless.

A small, red box was lying on the floor.

Kazuya was puzzled. It looked similar to the box that Cordelia Gallo, Victorique’s mother, had taken from the monastery Beelzebub’s Skull. Called a memento box, both the Ministry of the Occult and the Academy of Science had been searching for it. Cordelia said it was an important item that would determine the fate of the country.

A similar red box was on the floor. One of the six people in the compartment—Victorique and Kazuya, a middle-aged woman, a dark-haired girl, a large bearded man, and an aristocratic-looking young man, jerked.

Kazuya looked around. He couldn’t tell which one of them was startled. Every one of them was wearing calm, normal expressions.

“Oops. Didn’t mean to drop it.”

The dark-haired girl sitting by the window reached down to the floor, picked up the red box, and put it away carefully.

The large man watched the motion closely.

Then he scratched his beard, and said, “Now, then. Let’s introduce ourselves, shall we?”